--share what they know about Fr. Gratien Alabi with law enforcement officials, and

--use their “bully pulpits” to tell parishioners to do likewise.

We call on Catholic officials in Congo and Italy to take aggressive steps to help secular officials solve this alleged crime and other crimes by church personnel or in church facilities. We urge priests and bishops to show real compassion and courage - by using pulpit announcements, church bulletins, parish websites and other resources - to prod victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to step forward and call police and prosecutors when crimes are committed or suspected in churches.

For the safety of others, we urge everyone – Catholics and non-Catholics - to share what they may know about Fr. Gratien Alabi.

If innocent children and vulnerable adults are to be safer, inside and outside of churches, parishioners should be aggressively prodded to overcome their fears, break their silence and call law enforcement with even the slightest bit of information they may have about crimes and possible crimes.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We were founded in 1988 and have more than 20,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

Barbara Blaine, founder of SNAP, passed away on Sunday, September 24th, 2017. Her dying was sudden and completely unexpected. Words cannot express our sorrow nor are there words to express our gratitude for her relentless advocacy. She truly was a hero. There is an old saying, “well behaved women seldom make history”. Barbara made history and the world is a better place.

Join SNAP Today

50 State AG Call for Grand Jury

Write a letter to the attorney general of your state. Demand, request, and beg them to impanel a grand jury.

Any investigation must be:

independent of and separate from the church

must have subpoena powers and ability to compel testimony under oath

Anything short of these criteria is a sham and whitewash.

In addition, write letters to the editor, make phone calls to politicians as they can apply pressure to keep them responsive to our demand. We need to make efforts to ensure that they follow up on what the state is doing to investigate these crimes.

The Attorneys General of forty states have inquired about the grand jury process in Pennsylvania. Let's get statewide investigations going in fifty states.

Note to Letter Writers

Use your own words and style of writing. Cut and paste from the templates as you wish. Include your experiences, whether as a survivor or as a member of the community. And relate your letter to the state you were abused in or state now living in.